Family Values
by randommuffintpk
Summary: After being dragged along by his mother to help take care of his dying grandfather in the United States, fifteen-year-old John Watson is bored out of his skull. Until his first day of tenth grade, where he meets Sherlock Holmes — a pale, death-obsessed loner who is a visiting relative of a very, very odd family. Addams Family universe.
1. First Impressions

_Hi, everyone. This will be a multichaptered story of as-of-yet undetermined length, and will take place in whatever universe the Addams Family – thank you, Charles Addams – exists. I'm working on my other stories as well, but to battle writer's block I try not to write in a rigid or linear fashion. I go where the feels take me, you know? Anyway, I think that this is going to be fun. The rating for this story will not go up, by the way, so don't ask. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I did writing it._

_Disclaimer: No own. No money. No sue._

Chapter One: First Impressions

As he stared sullenly at the sky from the backseat of his aunt's dusty '87 Volvo Turbo Wagon, John Watson resisted the urge to sigh and roll his eyes like some dramatic teenager.

Well, he _was_ a teenager, but he liked to think of himself as the calm, unruffled, nothing-gets-to-me type – he wasn't a _teenager_, but a _young adult_, and there was a world of difference between those two terms. He wasn't dramatic. He wasn't suddenly becoming aware of (and obsessed with) sex. On the other hand, he did love sweaters and tea and had a strange, inexplicable affection for hedgehogs. All in all, from the author's perspective, John was a bit of an old soul, despite his physical shell at the beginning of this tale being a mere fifteen years, one hundred fourteen days, nine hours, twelve minutes, and fifty-four seconds old. An old soul that currently wanted to sigh and roll his eyes like some dramatic teenager, but an old soul nevertheless.

America. If having to pack up and move at a moment's notice hadn't been irritating enough, the fact that John and his mother were coming to live in the United bloody States was just the topper on a rather disappointing cake. John imagined that a Rather Disappointing Cake would look quite a lot like his twelfth birthday cake: soggy and a disconcerting shade of greenish-brown. This unnerving shade was what met John's eyes as his aunt's car rolled past the sign: "ENTERING SALEM – Est. 1626."

Whenever a person thought of Massachusetts, Boston usually came to mind – towering buildings, Fenway Park, and that ridiculous accent that few people could successfully imitate without sounding either like a cartoon animal or just plain insulting. Salem, Massachusetts, on the other hand, was…brown. And grey. It looked as though what little green existed was slowly being choked out by the same sort of resentful discontent that was currently settling in the pit of John's stomach. Not a very cheery place.

He noticed that the town was as a whole rather dreary, except for a main street that was filled with little curio shops and witch-themed pubs – _bars, they're called "bars" here_ – and restaurants; the primary colour theme seemed to be composed of purple and black, with the odd splashes of nauseatingly vibrant lime green or primary yellow. It was like that street was the final resting place of some garish Goth circus that had come for a pit stop and stayed forever because they either ran out of gas or lost the will to go on living. At least the rest of the town looked relatively ordinary – complete with fly-filled public swimming pool and seedy motel.

There was this dilapidated mansion that the Turbo Wagon passed just before they got to Grandpa Thomas' place – quite hard to miss, really. It was tall and dark and John spotted at least three cracked windows. With peeling grey paint and dark shutters, it looked like Satan's quaint little colonial getaway. _0001 Cemetery Lane_ hung above a dark brass knocker on the front door. And how appropriate: there appeared to be a family plot on the grounds, and some of the statues seemed (it was hard to make out from the car – Aunt Evelyn had, for some reason, sped up significantly to get past the house) to be oddly-shaped and in varying shades of disrepair. The overall effect was fascinating yet discomfiting.

As soon as the car pulled into the driveway of Grandpa Thomas' home – a modest Federal-style house with pale yellow siding and red shutters – John climbed out and attempted to stretch his cramped leg and back muscles. "We're here!" Aunt Evelyn declared unnecessarily. John grunted and his mother smiled hopefully up at the house.

"Isn't it beautiful, John?" she said, smiling down at him (yes, John was two inches shorter than his mother, but she _was_ five-foot-six and he still had time to grow. Hopefully). "It won't be so bad here." Rather than say anything that could be construed as negative, John went to retrieve his suitcase from the boot – _trunk? I think it's "trunk"_ – of the Wagon. He could feel the sleepy dullness of the town seeping into his clothing already.

Undaunted by her sister's and nephew's reactions, Aunt Evelyn went to join John at the _trunk_ to help with his mum's – _mom's. Dammit, I hate this already_ – plethora of suitcases and bags. "I'll admit, when Dad bought this place a few years ago I thought he must be going mad to want to move to the States," she chirped. John bit back a sarcastic _Hear-hear!_ "But he's really come to like it," she continued, lugging an enormous suitcase down the front cement path and up to the front door. "It's really quite peaceful here."

No sooner had she said that than an ear-splitting shriek ripped through the air, followed by a loud _boom_. John jumped a foot high and swore loudly, he along with his mother looking around frantically in search of the source of the scream. "What _was_ that?" John's mum cried, running towards the front door in terror.

To John's surprise, his aunt looked completely unruffled. "The neighbours," she muttered, rolling her eyes as she patted her sister's shoulder comfortingly. "Must be on one today. Don't worry, though, it doesn't happen too often."

"Neighbours? What neighbours?" John's mum's face was a study in indignation.

"The family in that old mansion that we passed. The dilapidated greyish one with the family plot."

John raised a blond brow. "So are screams and explosions a regular thing in that house?"

Aunt Evelyn made a face. "I'd rather not discuss it right now. Let's get the luggage inside and say hello to Dad."

* * *

Hamish Thomas was dying, that much was obvious. With waxy skin and sunken eyes, he looked as though he was slowly turning into a skeleton. He was only sixty-four, and colon cancer seemed to be triumphing over the man's will to live. Cancer seemed to run in the Thomas family, and John was absolutely terrified that it would ultimately be his demise, as it was for his grandfather and great-uncle. Still, as John, his mother, and his aunt entered Hamish's bedroom, the old man cracked a large smile and beckoned them to his bedside. "Em," he exclaimed, taking John's mum's hand between both of his. "It's lovely to see you – you're beautiful as ever. And who is this?" He turned to eye John.

"Hullo, Grandpa," John said, ducking his head slightly. It'd been six years since he'd last seen his grandfather – before Hamish had moved to America – and he remembered him as being stern, stiff, and unyielding. The man before him with tired eyes and wispy hair was nothing like he remembered: for one thing, he was smiling, which John had only seen happen once before.

How utterly shitty it is that some people find their humanity only when they're about to lose it.

John mulled this over as his grandfather exclaimed at how tall he was getting (John was five-foot-four. That is not very tall) and asked him if he had a girlfriend yet, to which John blushed and stammered out a "not yet". But according to Grandpa Thomas, many American girls absolutely adored English accents, and he'd land a girlfriend in no time. After all, he was starting school tomorrow, year ten – _tenth grade, I'll be a "sophomore," whatever that means_ – and he was to go to bed soon and get plenty of sleep for the next day.

Bidding his family goodnight, John trudged up the stairs to his small room, changed into his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, and then spent the next two hours trying to force himself to sleep.

* * *

John stared at the scene before him in what could only be described as bewilderment.

School buses. Honest-to-god, long, yellow school buses, looking like shiny metal Twinkies, lined the curb at the front of the rectangular brick building. John looked up at the boxy structure with the odd feeling that he was in a movie, and that any moment now a gaggle of scantily clad cheerleaders would perform a dance routine on the front lawn as a flock of American football jocks whistled and whooped. As he looked around and saw ripped jeans and baseball caps, he felt ridiculously out of place in his nice trousers and red jumper. He must look like a prat.

Deciding that he was going to do his best to fit in, John squared his shoulders and walked through the main doors.

It wasn't the ostentatiously large American flag hanging right above the doorway of John's first class that caught his eye. It wasn't the glaringly obvious lack of student uniforms – sagging pants paired with neon skate shoes seemed to be a normal thing within the young adult male demographic round here – that made him stop in his tracks. Hell, not even the cute girl with wavy chestnut hair who was smiling at him from the front row of desks was what distracted him. It was the boy sitting in the middle desk of the room.

The way the other children avoided being within two feet of him in all directions made for a comical picture: the loud, bright teenagers who were sitting down at their desks automatically scooted them away from that of the centre student, as though they were used to such a routine. The aforementioned boy – who looked at least two years older than the rest of the room's occupants – did not seemed fazed by this at all, but was merely staring straight ahead with a dreamy little grin on his face.

While John was not sure whether or not he was completely gay (read: that brunette in the front row was really quite pretty, and his grandfather _had_ assumed that he like girls), he was positive that he wasn't completely straight either. But this boy's beauty – _"Beauty?" Since when was that an appropriate masculine adjective?_ – was unnerving in its stark otherworldliness. He was a hodgepodge of sharp angles and soft lines: pale, full lips were offset by high razor cheekbones; luminous almond eyes contrasted with a sharp, strong nose. And his _skin_. God, most corpses had healthier colour than this desk-island-of-one dweller – thick, curly ebony hair framed a face so pallid that John began to worry whether or not the boy was even breathing.

John realised belatedly that he was staring at the gaunt teen's chest – to make sure he was inhaling and exhaling at regular intervals, of course – right as the warning bell rang, signalling that class would begin momentarily. Hurriedly he went to sit at the last available desk in the classroom, which was in the fourth seat of the desk column furthest from the door. The tardy bell rung just as a dark-skinned woman with bushy hair dashed in as quickly as her heels would allow and dumped a stack of folders down on her desk in the corner with a haphazard _fwump_, taking a clipboard from the top of the stack and handing it to the student in the topmost corner of the room.

"Right, the attendance sheet is going around," she said, walking over and shutting the classroom door. "I have your argumentative research essays graded and will pass them back at the end of class. Are there any questions on yesterday's homework?"

A single, white hand rose. Ms Donovan – John had just remembered her name – breathed in through her nose slowly. "Yes, Sherlock?" she said.

The boy – _"Sherlock?" What an…interesting name_ – smiled a grin that did not quite reach his eyes. "I have a question about yesterday's writing topic," he stated in a pleasantly smooth voice. John's eyebrows shot up. He was English as well.

Ms Donovan almost looked as though she didn't want to hear what the boy said next. "What exactly did you have trouble with?" she asked warily. "Did you have a problem interpreting the quote?"

"A little," Sherlock said. "I was a bit put off by the wording and had a difficult time pinpointing Wilde's meaning."

Ms Donovan wrote a sentence, a quote by Oscar Wilde that John had never heard before, on the whiteboard in blue marker: _True friends stab you in the front_. "Perhaps the class can help clarify with their own interpretations," she said, turning to face the room. "Who would like to share what they think this quotation is about?" No one raised their hand. Her gaze swept the rows of desks. "Kaden? What's this quote about?"

"Uh…friendship?" hedged a beefy, red-faced boy wearing a hockey jersey in the fifth row. John had to try very hard not to smile.

Ms Donovan had apparently mastered her poker face, because she said, "That's certainly true," without batting an eyelash. "Anyone else?" As her eyes roved the room once more they landed on John and she blinked. "Oh, yes, I forgot. Everyone, we have a new student – go on, stand up and introduce yourself."

John stood slowly and resolved that if he had to do this in each class today he may very well go mad. "H-hello," he said, eyes darting around the room. "My name is John Watson and I'm living with my grandfather for the next little while."

"Are you from England?" asked a girl two seats to his left.

"Yes," John replied. He had no idea why, but the rest of the students were now staring at him. Including Sherlock, John noted, an indecipherable expression on his pale face. "May I offer my interpretation of the quote?" he asked hesitantly.

"By all means, John," said Ms Donovan.

"Well, I think it's about being honest," he said. "People may talk about you and make fun of you behind your back, but a true friend will tell you the truth to your face. Even if the truth seems harsh and you feel offended at first, they're still doing it in your best interest because they care about you." After saying this he quickly sat down, feeling even more self-conscious than before.

Ms Donovan smiled. "I think that's a decent interpretation, John. Since you weren't here yesterday to receive the assignment, I'll have you turn it in tomorrow. One page on your interpretation, handwritten with the quote at the top." She turned to Sherlock. "Did that help you, Sherlock?"

He smiled that not-smile again. "I suppose," he replied pleasantly. "I just got rather hung up on thinking about stabbing for quite a while and ended up writing about that instead."

As a few children in the class shuddered, John began to see why the boy was so alone.

* * *

_Is it breathing? I think I just saw it move._

John stared in consternation at – what was supposed to be – beef stroganoff on his Styrofoam lunch tray as he made his way to a cluster of metal lunch tables on the school lawn. He noticed that the brunette girl that had smiled at him in English waved at him from a table on the right; smiling in return, he headed over and sat next to her. She was tall and slender, with those black hipster Ray Bans and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

"Hey, John," she said.

"Hi," he said, feeling flattered that she'd invited him over. "I think it's fair if I find out your name now."

"It's Mallory. These are my friends—" Here Mallory rattled off the names of the boys and girls at the table; John smiled and nodded at each person in turn, though he couldn't remember any of their names five minutes later. "So, you said that you're living with your grandpa for a while, right?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"He's dying." The table quieted, and John felt his ears go pink. Well, Mallory had been unabashedly direct, so he thought he'd be the same. "Cancer."

"Man, that really sucks," a boy across from John said. "What's with this cancer? Freaking everybody's getting it."

"John, I'm so sorry," Mallory said, her eyes widening. "I mean, my grandpa died right before I was born, so I didn't get to meet him or anything, but still...that must be really hard."

"Well, it's harder on my mum," John replied quietly, poking at his lunch with the plastic fork. "He's her dad, you know? I didn't see him much growing up." Not that that was necessarily a terrible thing, but you don't say that sort of thing on your first day of school. Deciding it was time for a change of subject, he turned back to Mallory. "How far are we into the term?" All he got was a blank stare. "Er…_semester_?"

"Oh, just a couple of weeks." The other teens seemed relieved that John could occasionally speak Americanese. "Most of the teachers here aren't too bad, so they'll probably help you get caught up."

"Especially Anderson," said a redheaded girl on Mallory's left. "He doesn't seem to care about anything, so he'll probably just exempt you from everything you've missed so far." A few people snickered at this.

"What's funny?" John asked.

Mallory rolled her eyes. "The chemistry teacher is sort of crazy. No big deal."

"Hashtag understatement," the redhead snorted. "He's nuts. At least he has a reason, though."

"What do you mean?" John pressed, visibly curious. "What made him crazy?"

Nine heads simultaneously swivelled around to look at a figure sitting against a gnarled tree at the edge of the grouping of tables. "Him," Mallory muttered.

John turned to look as well. And lo and behold, sitting beneath the tree, scrawling something frantically in a beaten leather notebook, was Sherlock Holmes, the boy from English that was fixated on stabbing. Again, John was struck by how unsettlingly handsome the ashen teen was. Without warning, the loner's head jerked up as though he'd been electrocuted, his cold light eyes darting up to stare at John. Startled, John stared back. Suddenly Sherlock grinned, but it didn't look friendly, it looked sort of _feral_, and John's stomach lurched. Who the hell was this kid? John tore his eyes away from the solitary boy and turned back to face the others at the table. "What's the matter with him?" he asked, brow scrunched in confusion.

"Dude, if I knew, I'd try to knock it out of him," the same boy from before said. "That guy's a freak. Showed up here at the beginning of the semester, said he was 'visiting family,' just like you, and he's been creeping the hell—"

"Ethan!" Mallory scolded.

"_Whatever_—out of everyone. Even the teachers hate him. Mr Anderson's gonna end up in a mental hospital if that freak keeps going to class."

"What'd he do?" John asked. Surely a student couldn't cause so much trouble….

"Mr Anderson thinks Sherlock's been trying to poison him," Mallory said with an accompanying eye-roll. "He can't prove it, but I wouldn't be surprised—Sherlock's a better chemist than he is. I once saw him asking the librarian if the school had any books on 'untraceable toxins' or something like that. I've never talked to him, though, so a lot of it's just rumour. Still, it's probably safe to just keep away from him and his weirdo cousins."

"From the family he's visiting," clarified Redhead. "Sherlock's in the year above the brother and below the sister. They have weird names, too. Tuesday and Pugsy, or something like that. They're all pale and they're all creepy."

John heard a chuckle from right behind him and his heart shot into his throat. "Why, Ashley, that might be the nicest thing you've ever said about me."

Everyone turned, startled, to see Sherlock standing directly behind John, staring down at the seated teenagers in what could only be interpreted as an eerie sort of amusement. He was a lot taller than John had realised, over six feet, and cut an intimidating figure in the midst of the noisy lunch area.

_Everyone needs friends_, John told himself firmly, and with resolve and a large exhale of breath through his nose, he stood and offered his hand to the so-called freak. "John Watson," he stated firmly.

Sherlock cocked his head to the side in a birdlike manner and stared at the proffered hand. "The one with the fascinating ideas about metaphorical stabbings," Sherlock said musingly. He looked up at John with those quicksilver eyes and that predatory leer. "Delighted." He grasped John's hand firmly.

John noticed that the hand he was shaking was covered in strangely coloured stains and the odd scratch here and there. And that it was bloody ice cold. He repressed a shudder—it felt like he was shaking hands with a corpse. Sherlock must've noticed the shiver, though, because his smile widened and he pulled John a bit closer. "You have nice eyes," he murmured, lowly enough that Mallory and everyone else at his table couldn't hear. "Especially when you're afraid." The smile widened. John let go of Sherlock's hand like it was a red-hot poker. He opened his mouth, about to tell the young man off, then came to the realisation that he had absolutely _no_ idea how to respond to such a comment and promptly shut it again.

Sherlock smiled beatifically at John and said brightly, "I think we'll become marvellous friends, John Watson. We could do so much together."

"…Sorry?" John said. What else _could_ he say, really?

Sherlock looked to his immediate right and nodded at a space of thin air. He looked back to John. "See you in class tomorrow." And he left, taking his notebook with him. John's eyes followed the strange boy back to the shade of the ancient tree, where he sat staring into space, knees drawn up to his chin as though he were a child.

_What. The. Actual. Fuck._ "Does he do that to all of the new people?" John turned and sat back at the table, his nose wrinkled in consternation. "Was that some sort of initiation? Are you having me on?"

The others at the table were staring at him. "He never talks to people," Mallory said, forehead creased. "Why did he talk to you?"

John stared at his food until the bell rang.


	2. Apparently Bread Can Cause Problems

_Heeeeey. I know that my updates take a while, but, well, I've got a lot going on. Furthermore, my autism causes me to become vastly uninterested in certain activities for long periods of time, and this time around I just never wanted to write. But I finally got this chapter out, which is, you know, something._

_This chapter is dedicated to my buddy Anthony, who got me excited about this again. Thanks, man. ^-^_

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story, not even John Watson. Dammit._

* * *

"What _is_ that stuff, Sherlock?"

Sherlock turned to stare down at the round boy that had wandered into his laborato—bedroom. He was holding tongs that were grasping the neck of a smoking beaker filled with pulsing lemon-coloured liquid, and tried very hard not to throw said liquid into the smaller boy's face. "What are you doing in here, Pugsley? Were the seven toxic waste warning signs on my door not enough?"

Pugsley ignored the rhetorical question and stepped closer to the enormous metal table that ran the length of Sherlock's room. "Can I play with your skull?" he asked, chubby fingers reaching for the—obviously real—human skull sitting on the edge of the table.

"Would you like to lose those fingers?" Sherlock asked without a trace of irony, smile falsely bright.

Pugsley grudgingly withdrew his hand. "Why won't you play with me?" he pouted.

"Because, dear cousin, I'm researching untraceable toxins in order to continue poisoning one of my teachers."

"Does Mother know?"

"Oh, yes, in fact she encourages it. I'm seventeen, after all—I must begin padding my résumé at some point." Sherlock's alien eyes darted from the yellow chemical—which looked as though it was beginning to melt the glass beaker—to Pugsley, who was once more reaching for the skull on the table. "Why don't you go bother Wednesday?"

A sigh. "She's busy."

Sherlock raised a prim brow. "As am I."

"Yeah, but she said that if I interrupt her while she's reading she'll turn me into a newt."

"I'm afraid she can't do that, Pugsley."

"Says you."

"Says everyone."

"Boys?" Sherlock and Pugsley turned to find Morticia Addams standing gracefully in the doorframe, a fond smile curling her lips. "Have either of you seen Thing?"

"No," Pugsley replied, while at the same time Sherlock said, "My brother isn't here." Pugsley giggled.

The Addams family matriarch raised her eyebrows slightly. "Oh, Sherlock, darling, did I forget to mention? Mycroft called today and said he's coming for a visit during your Christmas break."

Sherlock gaped. "That—that is out of the question, Auntie. On no account will that scum cross the threshold of any structure in which I reside. I'll die first." Pugsley seemed to perk up at that, but Sherlock brushed him off. "Whatever in the world would make him want to come _here_?"

Morticia exhaled quietly, arms crossing as her willowy form leant slightly against the doorjamb. "He's trying to normalize you, dear. It's only to be expected, what with the way he turned out. It was such a relief to discover that you were less like your brother and my elder sister, Sherlock. If you had turned out like them, well, I wouldn't know what to do." Her eyes seemed to go misty. You're just so _abnormal_, and we couldn't be happier."

"Mm." Sherlock was in a sulk, back to watching the beaker melt in silence, shoulders slumped. "Good luck finding Thing."

Morticia vanished, leaving the two boys alone. Pugsley, seeing that Sherlock was distracted for the time being, attempted for a third time to touch the skull.

A _hiss_ followed by a hair-raising yelp of pain sounded from Sherlock's bedroom as Morticia walked down the hall. She smiled to herself, feeling a warm sense of maternal pride at the sound of family bonding taking place.

* * *

"No. Absolutely not."

"Don't you think you might be overreacting, Ev?"

John walked into the kitchen that dismal Saturday morning to find his mother and aunt locked in an intense conversation. Starting school on a Friday had been weird, to be sure—he'd woken up at half-six, gotten ready for the day and watched telly—_TV_—for four hours. Eventually, though, even reruns of the fourth series of _Doctor Who_ had become boring, so he'd wandered into the kitchen for a snack. Cue scene.

"Overreacting to what?" he asked, stretching his arms above his head and releasing a small grunt.

"The neighbours," his mother replied with a weighty eye-roll. "She's afraid of them."

"And rightfully so," muttered Aunt Ev, reflexively glancing out the window.

John followed her gaze. She'd looked at the dark mansion across the field. "Oh, yeah. What's so scary about them?" He couldn't imagine that there were many horrific happenings in mind-numbing suburban life.

"Oh, lots of things," said Evelyn evasively, turning to fix her sister with a warning stare. "Don't approach any of them. You'll end up dead, most likely. Dad almost had a stroke when he first met the father—he attacked Dad with a ruddy sword!"

_She's obviously exaggerating_, thought John. Instead of voicing his scepticism he commented, "I met one of them at school yesterday."

A muscle in Aunt Evelyn's jaw jumped. "Lord have mercy. Which was it? The Gothic doll or the little gargoyle?"

"Er…" John didn't think that his aunt was referring to Sherlock Holmes, though "Gothic doll" did seem a bit fitting. "The cousin, Sherlock."

"There's _another_ one?" Evelyn threw up her arms in a gesture of despair. She looked at her nephew up and down with her darting, beady eyes. "Well, you don't look like you've been poisoned or electrocuted or stabbed, so perhaps he isn't as bad as the rest of them. But you should still stay away."

"Well, what am I supposed to do with this, then?" John's mother jerked a thumb at a loaf of bread still in its pan on the oven's range. "I was going to give these to our neighbours!"

"So give the both of them to the Womacks," replied Ev, shrugging. "It would do you well to have the law on your side." With one last look of warning to John, she left the kitchen to check on her father.

"D'you really believe what she says about that family?" John asked his mother.

Emily sighed, brushing an errant lock of hair from her face. "Your aunt can exaggerate, Johnny, that's for sure. Still, her bizarre prejudice shouldn't keep us from being polite." She looked over to her son, with his rumpled hair and unassuming face. "Want to deliver this bread for your old mum?"

"Sure." He needed to walk for a bit to make up for all the telly. "There's the people—Womacks?—next door, and then the, erm…"

"Addamses," his mother supplied.

"Right." _Didn't even know their last names—guess the cousin is on the mother's side. I wonder if he'll be home….What if I see him and he says something freaky again?_ "The Addams Family. Got it."

She wrapped the two loaves of bread and put them in a brown paper sack with handles. "Take care not to get blown up," she called jokingly as John walked out the front door of the house and down the little path.

* * *

At the house next to the Watsons', the front door was open by a terse, grizzled man with squinting eyes and a moustache like Stalin. He seemed completely grey. "No solicitors," he barked, eyeing John's paper sack apprehensively. "I'll fine you before you can say, 'Have mercy, your honour'!"

"Oh, er, I'm not—"

"Speak up, son!"

"I'm not selling anything!" John exclaimed. "My mum and I moved in with my fath—no, her father this week, and she wanted me to give you this." He thrust out a loaf of bread like he was sacrificing a peace offering to an angry deity.

Judge Womack eyed the bread with much less suspicion. "More Watsons, eh?" John nodded quickly. "Well, I hope you're as quiet as your grandfather, young man."

John refrained from stating that terminally ill people oftentimes become quiet, and instead smiled nervously. "Yes, sir." It wouldn't be smart to make a cheeky first impression on the district judge.

The old man returned the smile, albeit to a fractional, frosty degree. "Good. Welcome to the neighbourhood." He closed the door in John's face.

John did an about-face and began the small trek to the Addams' house. He briefly considered cutting through the field between his home and theirs, but it looked as though part of the property was sinking into a sort of marsh, and he would have to pick his way through their family graveyard. The road it was.

The garden of 0001 Cemetery Lane was parched and brittle, and the house seemed to loom ominously over John as he walked closer and closer to its black shadow. Looking up at its face, he startled upon seeing a figure flit past an upper window.

He walked up the steps to the front doors, which were large and rounded at the top and had a thick ring of iron for a knocker on both sides. John lifted one, but was caught off-guard by its heaviness and only lifted it a couple of inches before his grip slipped. It rebounded against the wood with a resounding _thud_, and John couldn't suppress a flinch. He heard descending footsteps for several seconds, and a few moments later the door was thrown open.

There stood Sherlock, tall, painfully thin, with fresh marks on his hands and an inky cloud of curly hair that was even messier than the first time John saw him. Once more, the shorter boy was at a loss for words, and he instead awkwardly held up the brown paper sack. "For you lot," he bleated, cursing his inarticulacy.

Sherlock stared at him without blinking, not even giving the sack a glance. He was completely silent for several seconds, and John considered setting the bag down on the porch and fleeing back to his grandfather's house. Suddenly, Sherlock spoke. "Impeccable timing," he said, face adopting an innocent smile. Darting out a pale hand, he dragged John through the doorway with unexpected strength.

"Hey!" John yelped, grasping at the other boy's arm. "Let the hell go!"

Sherlock's grip didn't relent as John continued to be steadily pulled further into the dreary house. "No, I don't think so—you're going to help me with something." He turned, eyes glinting with curiosity. "By any chance, do you have any resistance built up against cyanide?"

John's hand stilled as he stared at the kidnapping nutter. "You're joking, aren't you? You're taking the piss."

They'd reached a large set of stairs. "Not at all, Jim."

"It's _John_." Oh, good, he was arguing about his name instead of looking for an escape. Moron. "Look, all I'm trying to do is give your family this," said John, his tone not a little desperate as he began whacking Sherlock with the brown sack. For all the good it did him, he may as well have been trying to cut down the largest tree in a forest with a herring. "Will you let go of my arm, please?"

Sherlock stopped when they were on the sixth step and turned to look at his unwilling captive. "Why are you hitting me with a paper sack?" he asked, as if he had no idea why John was becoming slightly hysterical.

John's brow furrowed comically as he stared at Sherlock. "Why are you tugging on my trousers?" he shot back.

"I'm not—ah." Sherlock looked down and smirked, though John refused to do so. The taller boy was likely just trying to distract him in order to catch him off guard and clock him over the head, or something as equally mad. "Auntie!" Sherlock called, making poor John jump.

"What is it, dear?" John jumped a mile when a tall woman in black seemed to just _appear_ at the top of the staircase.

Sherlock didn't seem to notice the other boy's oncoming panic attack. "I found Thing, and Thing found Josh. Say hello, Josh." Sherlock turned to look at John, but the blond had finally decided to look down at what had been tugging on his trouser leg.

He immediately regretted it, and when he finally spoke his voice was little more than a squeak. "It's a hand."

"Brilliant," replied Sherlock, clapping him on the back. John flinched. "Josh is my friend from school," he said, addressing his aunt.

"It's _John_," whispered John, still staring at the bodiless hand that was now jumping up the stairs.

Sherlock flashed him a sardonic smile before looking back up at the pale woman. "He's kindly volunteered to help me with an experiment that could have future implications on the Anderson project." John's stomach jolted as he recalled Sherlock's mention of cyanide only moments ago. "If you need us, we'll be upstairs. Come along, _John_."

In a matter of seconds, John found himself up the staircase and down a dark hallway, trailing in Sherlock's vise-like grip. "Hold up, hold up," he sputtered. If he were to be perfectly honest, the struggling was beginning to tire him, as the dark-haired youth's propulsion of them both down the hall was inexorable. "Whatever happened to informed consent? I'm not a lab rat!"

They finally reached a black door, and, opening it, Sherlock dragged John in. "No, not a rat," agreed Sherlock. "A mouse, maybe. Sit." Sherlock pushed John onto a bed in the corner of the room before the other had a breath to protest.

_Shit, I'm done for_, screamed John's brain. He scrambled up, readying himself for the fight for his life, when he noticed that Sherlock had zipped to a long cluttered table across the room and was fiddling with a set of vials. John's eyes roved the room, taking in his environment and looking for possible weapons.

The room wasn't huge, but it was gloomy, with dark wood flooring and wallpaper that was beginning to peel. Weak sunlight filtered in from a window adjacent to the metal table where Sherlock lurked, between the cornered detainee and the door. John stood slowly, quietly, when his eyes landed on a scary-looking harpoon leaning against the wall near the window.

In an instant, John grabbed the harpoon and levelled it at Sherlock, who looked up a few moments later. For a person who had a giant piece of glinting metal staring him in the face, he seemed remarkably unruffled. He looked at John, amusement tugging at the sides of his mouth. "Come now, we barely know each other—there's no need to rush things," he practically purred.

"Does anything you say make sense?" demanded John, blinking furiously.

"Is your voice always so high-pitched?" Sherlock replied, turning the point of the harpoon slowly away from himself with a finger.

"All I wanted was to drop that off"—John jerked his head towards the abandoned bag of bread on the bed—"and be on my bloody way. So just let me do that, please."

"Ah, what's in it?" Sherlock strode past the harpoon and approached the bed, snatching up the sack and dumping its contents on the bed.

John stepped back a bit, dropping his maritime weapon and putting space between himself and the owner of the bedroom. "What's it look like?"

"Hm." Sherlock picked up the bread, peered at it closely, sniffed it, and ventured a lick. He promptly threw it across the room. "Inedible," he exclaimed disgustedly, turning to John with wide eyes. "Are you trying to poison _me_? How the tables have turned."

"What? That bread's fine, I had some earlier."

Sherlock arched a brow. "Sure. Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit weird?"

John ignored the hypocritical remark. "Right. Leaving now." He turned towards the door, ready to leave this whole disquieting event behind. And if Sherlock tried to stop him, he'd get a harpoon-swing to the head.

"Hold on." John looked back hesitantly, an eyebrow cocked to show that he meant business. "Do you see what just happened?" Sherlock asked, looking a bit boggled.

"Huh?"

"We had a conversation. Granted, your strangeness stilted it somewhat—" John made an indignant noise— "and it was short, but that was the most words a non-family member has said to me in quite a long time."

_He thinks that my threatening him with violence and demanding freedom was a conversation?_ "So?" demanded John.

"Teach me how to do that."

John looked heavenward as if in silent prayer. "Do what, be normal?" he replied sarcastically.

"Exactly." There was that strange, lopsided grin Sherlock wore, only this time it was slightly more conniving. "If that's what you want to call it, so be it. Teach me how to act like I'm 'normal'."

"You don't seem too keen on it." John crossed his arms. "Why would you want to seem normal?"

"Mm, I have my reasons."

_Well, that doesn't sound suspicious. What a wanker._ "I don't see what I'd get out of it."

Sherlock eyed John demurely. "Oh, I'm sure we could figure something out." His eyes unfocussed as he became lost in thought, but his gaze sharpened upon looking at his lab table. "Oh! Tutoring. Yes, that could work." He clapped his hands together and stepped forward, lessening the space between himself and the shorter boy. "We only have English together, but I know for a fact that you'll be wanting help in chemistry class this year, owing to Anderson being Anderson and you more than likely being a dullard."

"A _what_? You do realize that you've insulted me about twenty times in two minutes, right?"

"Don't take it personally, John—practically everyone is an idiot. What I'm saying is, I'll help you in any and all subjects in school if you'll teach me the mystical art of normalcy."

John's brain hosted a silent debate. On the one hand, Sherlock was altogether worrisome: he was a kooky, rude, critical maniac who seemed to have no regard whatsoever for boundaries of any sort. On the other hand, he seemed quite intelligent as well, and that girl from yesterday, Mallory, had claimed that Sherlock was a better chemist than the school's actual teacher (and apparently had it out for Anderson, the poor bastard).

A thought he'd had yesterday when he'd first spoken to Sherlock Holmes flashed through his mind: _everyone needs friends_. John mentally berated himself for being so soft. "All right, all right," he finally relented on a huge exhale.

"Marvellous!" Sherlock made a strange flourishing motion with one of his hands and flitted over to his table. "Shall we seal this verbal contract with a blood oath?"

John's frayed nerves simply refused to put up a fight anymore, and his reply was actually quite calm. "Erm, no, Sherlock. Hell no. First lesson: blood oaths are now frowned upon in polite society. Please put down the scalpel."

Sherlock reluctantly put it down, frowning. "Noted. Then what should we do, seal it with a kiss?"

_Jesus tap-dancing Christ._ "That's almost as far from 'normal' as it could get, and we've already discussed getting blood involved." John moved to put a hand over his face (to show his exasperation. It was most definitely not to hide the pink that was tingeing his cheeks. Definitely not.) when he saw the time on his wristwatch. "God, I've gotta go—my mum's probably thinking I've been kidnapped." _Which is true._ "I'll see you on Monday."

Sherlock smirked, throwing himself onto his bed. "See you, silly little yellow boy."

John felt the older boy's gaze burning his back as he hurried from the room. "What the flipping hell have I gotten myself into?" he muttered to himself several times as he hurried home. Clearly he needed some sort of tutoring—his critical thinking and reasoning skills seemed pretty shitty right now.

When he opened the door to the house, his mum walked into the foyer, arms crossed, eyeing him up and down. "What took you so long?" She certainly didn't seem worried, as she suddenly smirked. "Ooh, was it the Addamses? Did they experiment on you?" She chuckled, shaking her head. "Your aunt can be pretty paranoid sometimes."

John's shoulder's sagged. "Ha, yeah. Paranoid. Anyway, I'm just gonna…" His sentence trailed off as he trudged upstairs, trying very hard not to think about how he might've just made a deal with a demon.

* * *

_Ooh, the suspense. Cue organ music. Why does Sherlock want to learn how to be normal? There's one fairly obvious reason, as well as a couple of secondary ones. Stay tuned for the following updates, which shall be filled with teen awkwardness and a bunch of other weird shit. The dramaaaaaa._

_Later, dudes._


End file.
